I hope it says something about this week that my options for this evening are: a) drinks; and b) yoga, and I’m considering the yoga. Seriously. It’s a special full-moon yoga pachage — an hour of kundalini, followed by an hour of gong immersion. I mean, why the hell not?

There was a woman who used to take a weights class at the same time I did a while back. She was, what’s the word? Insufferable. Whippet-thin and toned down to the last muscle, she was the sort who, when the instructor said, “If you’d like an extra challenge, raise your legs into table position,” would raise her legs into table position and add something extra on top of that. Just to be insufferable. She never sweated. During breaks, she’d say things like, “I never have to watch what I eat. Just eat whatever I want. Must be my genes.”

In fine weather, she would ride hr bike to the gym, like me. No helmet. No lock. “Yeah, I should probably get one of those,” she’d say, wrinkling her pretty nose before pedaling off, her unsweaty hair trailing behind her. She never did.

But one day we were doing a yoga strength move, and she confided something someone had told her: “Guys? It’s anti-Christian.” After that, I resolved to do downward-facing dog for the rest of my life, and I will probably think of her skinny ass every time I do.

Yeah, I’m thinking yoga tonight. And then drinks.

Much good bloggage today, so let’s get to it.

Once upon a time, the president was a young man, and he went to his prom. With pictures.

As we’re on a happy hour theme, two booze stories. First, the pricey stuff:

Even though I know it’s coming, it’s hard not to feel sticker shock when I get the bill at The Rye Bar in Georgetown’s new Capella hotel. On my tab: a $22 Manhattan and an $18 Old Fashioned. With tax and tip, the whole thing rounds out to $50. For two drinks.

Don’t get me wrong, the cocktails at The Rye Bar are very good, and the Manhattan is one of the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s made with Dad’s Hat rye, a small-batch whiskey from Bristol, Pa., Dolin sweet vermouth, and French aperitif Byrrh quinquina, all aged together for six weeks in American white oak barrels, making it so smooth that the buzz catches you by surprise.

It so happens I recently interviewed a craft distiller, and the products were wonderful. On the other hand, the day I pay $22 for a drink is the day I go back to Budweiser in bottles.

Now, the cheap stuff:

Twenty-nine bars and restaurants, nearly half of them TGI Fridays, filled premium brand liquor bottles with lower-quality booze and sold it to patrons who thought they were buying the good stuff, authorities said Wednesday.

Worse yet, investigators said at least one New Jersey bar was mixing food dye with rubbing alcohol and serving it as scotch. Officials would not say who used the rubbing alcohol. But they said no health issues were reported.

Nothing about this surprises me, I regret to say. Speaking of which, don’t get the Sno-Cones at Minute Maid Park.

But let’s try to close on an up note — Gene Weingarten observes a neighborhood eviction. As only he can.

Oh, let’s all try to have a good long weekend, shall we?

It was one of those ai-yi-yi sorts of days, punctuated with some bright spots. I am seeing, just in glimpses and just at the outermost periphery of my vision, some glimpses of clarity. But like the bright elusive butterfly of love, it refuses to be captured. When I look for it, I can’t find it. When I’m not, THERE IT IS. For just an instant.

I will take this as a good sign.

Hit the weight room at the end of it, because sometimes, that’s what you have to do — pump iron. Lately, I’m digging the Jammer in the weight room. All the college students are out and back in the gym now, clanging plates around and making all kinds of noise. I like to bring my schvitzing old ass right in the middle of them. Get used to granny, kids.

So let’s make this short and sweet and picture-ific.

I’m trying to eat more vegetables, without going to too much trouble. This is becoming a favorite lunch/breakfast — shakshuka. Or, in this case, Extremely Low-Rent Shakshuka:

You make a little tomato sauce, get it how you like it, then drop a couple of eggs on top and cover the pan. When the eggs are done, you have a wonderful lunch, with protein and a cup or so of veg. You can season it hot or mild, add whatever you want. This one was spicy. The one I made for lunch today was mostly black beans. And that is how you console yourself as an at-home worker, at charge of your own lunch.

I’m sorry, but this just cracks me up:

Gerald Ford, spending a summer on Mackinac. It’s a piece from ArtPrize, called “Our President,” and the thought of it menacing tourists for the season is simply hilarious.

The Atlantic’s photo blog collection of tornado photos from Oklahoma.

Will this week ever end? We’ll see. But we’re now over the hump.

Man, if you’re an editor? You don’t get paid enough money. I’m covering for my vacationing boss this week, and I’m just amazed at how much a modern editor has to think about. Content, of course, but also: Photos. Headlines. Tags. Scheduling and placement. Links. Where everything goes. It calls on a whole different set of skills, and if they’re rusty, well, in today’s world you can squeak “oil can” through your clenched jaw all day, and no one will hear you.

And did I mention I’m half-blind? Things are finally, slowly starting to resolve themselves in the ol’ eyeball, and the extra vision is yet another thing to get used to — the increased definition is almost worse than last week’s total blurrification. But of course, improvement is welcome.

And then this afternoon, another bike ride — faster this time. A hot sweaty mess when I got home, but hot sweaty mess means a lukewarm shower and a small scoop of ice cream for dessert.

We’re having a busy week anyway. Bridge has a new partnership with the Free Press, and it launched today with a couple of stories I’d be interested in anyone’s thoughts on. My colleague Ron had to be in California to accept an award, so we sent him down to Vallejo and Stockton, the largest cities in the U.S. to declare bankruptcy — so far. Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing is seen as a foregone conclusion, so that’s the angle for us. Californians? Thoughts?

(I think I swapped the links there — the Stockton story is linked to Vallejo above, and vice versa. But the first link is the main story, so you can start there.)

And with that, we are into the bloggage, I guess.

Frank Bruni isn’t my favorite writer by a long shot, but even when you strip away all the Bruni from this story out of Columbus, just the bare facts are infuriating: A gym teacher at a Catholic high school in Columbus, fired after her mother’s obituary mentioned her female life partner among the survivors. A parent dimed her out — anonymously — and that was that. I hope she sues, I hope she wins, and I hope she crushes that place like Godzilla.

A funny story out of Tampa on one of those sovereign-citizen types.

Finally, a slide show, via Hank: The Naval Academy plebes, for their final act of plebe year, climb a spire on campus that has been coated with grease. Yes, shirtless young men climbing a greased obelisk-like structure. Great pix.

Oh, so tired I am. Guess where I’m going?

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain, sometimes in a circular motion at close to 200 miles per hour, with a two-mile-side footprint. Mercy, this is awful.

Of course, all natural disasters are awful, and every time they happen, you are reminded anew of how each variety is awful. The sight of bare trees, stripped of their leaves and branches, sometimes even their bark, always freaks me out, as do photos like this, a classic of the genre — a half-destroyed room, where the doors of a cabinet have been flung open, but the glasses inside stand untouched.

Sometimes these things end better than you’d think. I recall a twister in Indiana that tore off a roof and destroyed a room. When the occupants rushed in, they found their baby sitting in her high chair in the middle of it, covered with insulation but otherwise unharmed.

Not so much in Oklahoma, I’m afraid. As I’m sure everybody will already know by the time they read this, at least one elementary school was destroyed, and perhaps two.

Which makes today’s accomplishment by dumb ol’ me — I had my first taste of rye whiskey, and friends, it was sublime — look pretty punk. It was this stuff. I’ve never sampled the stuff, because rye? Who drinks rye? Characters in old novels, that’s who. But boy, was it good. I had about a teaspoon, then drove home in heat that just kept climbing. It was 87 when I got home, so what the hell? A bike ride. Ten miles in 50 minutes was all I had the energy for, but I got ‘er done.

Not much bloggage today, but I enjoyed this: What your state bird should be. He has a point. Many points.

Fucking Apple. Ai yi yi.

More 80s today, but by the weekend? Highs in the low 60s. Because that’s how we roll now.

Spring has finally deigned to arrive, and it appears to be a pretty good one. Saturday I rode in the Cycle Into Spring, a group ride put on by the same people who do the Tour de Troit in the fall. Whenever I think group rides are a waste of money, I think of the police escort and the wonderful feeling of rolling through under the red lights. Worth $25, in my opinion. Ten bucks extra bought lunch: Three sliders and two sides from Slow’s, the barbecue place.

All in all, a perfect morning. I’d planned to go to the Eastern Market early, but even at 7:30 a.m., the freeway exit was backed up for a quarter mile. I ducked out and opted for breakfast at the Jefferson Avenue IHOP, where one of Alan’s colleagues had to submit to a full body search to be seated after midnight one night when the tunnel was backed up.

No body search. In fact, hardly any other customers. But it made for a nice early breakfast. IHOP — the classics never change.

And the ride was quite nice. I went with a friend, who stayed to my right and kept the blind side filled with a friendly presence. Twenty miles in three hours. It was a cinch. Then sliders, then home, then a nap. And that’s what I call a Saturday.

How was yours?

I would have taken some pictures, but I’d recently edited this column, and am thinking you don’t always have to take a picture to prove you were there.

Although sometimes you have to take a picture. This is Jerry, who helped us get the mast up:

The wind vane at the top of the mast got whopper jawed in the raising, so Jerry went aloft to straighten it out. This was a new one. Brave Jerry. We tipped him.

Do I have some bloggage? I do:

The Atlantic photo blog delivers again. Great pictures.

A video of a wolf pack howling. Those of you who have cats — I’m interested to know how they respond to this.

What is going ON with this episode of “Mad Men?” If you have a clue, share.

The crush of stuff I alluded to earlier in the week has arrived, so I’m calling in sick today. However, I have a fabulous time-waster for you today: Geo Guesser, in which you are served a random Google Maps street view from somewhere in the world, and asked to figure out where you are. I played two rounds, scored 11,000 and 9,000 points respectively, and am really hoping no one does this as an iPad app, because then I’ll get nothing done.

But you geography nerds will enjoy. My tips: Street signs. License plates. Flags. Cars. Pavement quality. Your gut. This is what will carry you along.

I’ll be back Monday.

Well, I found a better FalconCam. Campbell Ewald is an ad agency in Warren with a building that stands out in its field, so to speak, rising several stories over the usual inner-ring suburban low-rise sprawl. They’ve had peregrines visiting for a while now, but this year they finally got a nesting pair, and they have the HD video installation such a bird requires. The greatest-hits video blog is here, and the link to the livestream is here. The eggs hatched only this week, with one to go.

It’s really quite arresting, watching the parents come back to the nest with a dead bird in hand to do the regular feedings. I think they’re doing an eat-and-regurgitate thing for now, which makes sense.

As Campbell Ewald is an ad agency, the people running this are a little too cute for my taste. After only a day of occasional checks, I’m growing tired of the memes and anthropomorphizing, but oh well, it’s their camera. They can brand-build with it all they want, I guess.

Of course, now the 20th-century technology of Fort Wayne’s FalconCam looks pretty dim, but the chicks are older, and moving around the nest more, so there’s that.

And there’s bloggage:

A friend is doing some canning, and recalled the single best canning headline ever. Photo is just the lagniappe.

I recall the Freep slobbered all over this place when it debuted, so it’s only fitting they cover the inevitable failure. Yes, it’s another Mike Binder project, which I am shocked, shocked to see didn’t fly. Isn’t Los Angeles just DYING to eat shitty coney dogs? Binder obviously has passed the point of success — let’s call it the Binder Point — where forever after, no matter how many times you screw up, you can no longer fail. Lagniappe: At the time I’m posting this, the local “iconic” potato-chip brand name is misspelled in the story. Because it’s so iconic.

This happened to the son of a woman I worked on a project with a few years back. I get the feeling it happens every year, somewhere. Because BROTHERS.

Hump day is behind us, so let’s float down the other side.

Life is starting to move very quickly, and will for the next month. Tomorrow, Kate takes her first AP test, and may I just say? AP classes are a big fuckin’ racket that I wish had never been invented. She’s hated the thing all year, and now she’s making herself nuts for a class that most likely won’t be accepted for credit by whatever college she ends up at; it costs $80; and it’s 3.5 hours long. Three! And a half! Hours! I didn’t have a college test that long in my entire career.

And of course, the great irony: The better the college you’re aiming for, the more AP classes you need. The better the college you’re aiming for, the less likely the college is to accept AP classes for credit.

Well. In 24 hours it’ll be all over. And then we go to the weekend, when Kate will be at a two-day practice for Europe. Then finals (taken early, because Europe). Then Kate goes to Europe, and Alan and I go on vacation for a week, and then the summer gallops before us like a nymph you chase through the woods. How is this possible? It was 40 degrees yesterday.

All of which boils down to: It’s a bad time to have only half one’s vision. But I’m gettin’ ‘er done. Dinner tonight: Grilled flank steak, potatoes, and a lovely orange-avocado salad. I made the salad for our dinner party Saturday and thought: I should make this more often. So I am. Sweetness, silkiness, and a superfood. Part of me thinks bad things can’t happen to anyone who’s had a good dinner the night before. Best of luck to Kate Wednesday.

But I think I’ll duck out for a Wednesday-night ride at the Hub, down in Detroit. Girl needs some exercise from time to time.

Bloggage? Maybe:

Don’t follow this link, or you may not come up for air for hours — the fallout from a recent “Kitchen Nightmares” about a Scottsdale dump I’m tempted to travel to see. Maybe Scout or someone on the ground can give us some recon.

Josh Marshall on what you need to know about the IRS scandal.

Throb, eye, throb! I’m done.

Oh, wait: Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. Happy two decades to us.

We had a bit of a server problem last night that cut into my blogging time, so not much today. But how can any of us think about ANYthing else than the death of Dr. Joyce Brothers? How is it possible this icon of my childhood is gone? Actually, how is it possible she was still alive? She died at 85. Old, but not that old.

Once upon a time, every time you turned on a talk show, she was there, offering advice with the imprimatur of her doctorate. She outranked the ad hoc wise women like Ann and Abby, but she wasn’t all credentials, right? I remember her being common-sensical and wise.

I interviewed her once. Some book, probably. At the end of the interview, I mentioned Gilda Radner, and she laughed about Roseanne Rosannadanna and the sweatball story. You have to like a person who can have a laugh at their own expense.

And after a day of computer-monitor staring, frankly, my eyes are athrob. So let’s take it away, comments.

And so, 10 days or so after having a surgical procedure I still hesitate to describe bluntly, lest the few remaining readers of this blog barf and run screaming for the exits, it’s back to work.

I’m still, as Marsellus Wallace said, pretty far from OK, but I’m mending. The redness in my eye is gone (thanks, prednisone) although the pupil remains dilated (atropine eyedrops) and will for another few days. Still basically blind on that side, but I’m assured this will resolve itself. I’ve started driving again, gingerly — short hops only. I did a little freeway piece on Sunday in light traffic, but it was jarring enough that I’m putting that aside for a while. The depth perception I’m growing used to, but the blind side is still too dangerous for the sort of combat-driving conditions one can expect on a Detroit interstate.

But I’m hale and hearty enough that we threw a little dinner party Saturday, and I managed not to fall into the grill or anything. (I had a hell of a time getting my mascara wand back into the tube this morning, however.) So Monday I’m back at it. Which is today.

I’m still feeling a little giddy about being sprung from facedown life, frankly. The night of the day I was cleared to stand up, I went to bed early, swallowing two ibuprofen and a melatonin on the way. I slept like a corpse for eight hours and rose feeling 10 years younger, or maybe 15. Recovery, even from something minor like a cold, always gives you that ESCAPED AGAIN feeling of having beaten something, and you walk around grateful for everything from a warm breeze to a hot cup of coffee. I hope it lasts, although I know it won’t.

So a lot happened last week.

I’m amazed that so few media outlets, in their coverage of the Cleveland kidnapping cases, are failing to mention, or mentioning only obliquely, the case of Ariel Castro’s daughter, now serving a 25-year sentence in Indiana for attempting to slash the throat of her own 11-month-old daughter. As one of you noted in the comments last week, it seems there’s a long history of craziness in that clan, or maybe it’s just, in the trite phrase, a history of violence.

One of the movies I watched during my facedown recovery — or started to watch, but didn’t finish — was “Goon,” a comedy about a hockey enforcer. The decent cast did what they could, and it had promise, but like so many Apatow-influenced movie projects these days, failed to find its way. Funny is funny, but there’s only so much you can do with one punchout after another, and I abandoned it around the 30-minute mark. Reading about the late Derek Boogaard in the New York Times a year or so ago sort of spoiled hockey goons for me for good. His family is now suing the NHL, which will be an interesting case to watch.

Finally, enjoy: A video made for the bid to get Detroit selected as the next X Games venue. Very well-done in the usual manner, which is to say every rust stain is a brushstroke of paint on our ruined masterpiece of a city, etc. But inspiring in its own way:

So we’re back, we’re all back, and let’s see how the week goes, eh?